One-time Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Time in Office
The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen come out of his lair? That is a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the company grew from his previous salary while defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
